Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, May 17, 2006

More than $478 million from the state has helped pay for thousands of affordable-housing projects for poor residents in the Bay Area, according to a report released Tuesday by a San Francisco nonprofit agency.

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The funding, however, will run out by the end of the year, and on Tuesday affordable housing activists, joined by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, used the release of the report to begin a campaign for a similar measure on the November ballot that they say would continue the flow of money for affordable housing to the Bay Area.

Proposition 1C is a $2.85 billion housing bond that will appear with other bond measures for transportation, education and flood protection.

Newsom set a goal of 15,000 housing units over five years with more than a third of them deemed affordable for poor and moderate-income buyers. Funding from the November ballot measure could help pay for some of those projects.

"We made it very clear to the leadership of Sacramento that we would not support any compromise that came out on statewide bonds unless it included housing," Newsom said.

Under Prop. 46, which comes from the state's general fund, more than $1.27 billion paid for affordable apartments, condominiums, starter homes, housing for farmworkers and shelter beds around the state.

San Francisco received $78 million for affordable housing, the study concluded. Los Angeles, which received $100 million, was the only city in the state to receive more money.

Around the region, Alameda County received $126 million, which paid for 2,824 housing units, Santa Clara County received $91 million, which paid for 2,776 housing units, and Sonoma County received $57 million, which paid for 1,717 housing units.

Affordable housing developers have said some of the projects that received state funding would have been stalled without the cash.

To set the stage for their message, Newsom and the nonprofit group behind the report held a press conference Tuesday at the Senator Residence, which received Prop. 46 funds and is an 89-unit apartment building in the Tenderloin for families and formerly homeless people.

"If we want to deal with the issue of families, the forgotten middle class in San Francisco, the number of people leaving the city and our public schools (then) we've got to deal with housing at all income levels," Newsom said. "To get serious about homelessness, you've got deal with housing."